Video Creation Timestamp Analysis
For some videos on Youtube and depending on how it was uploaded its possible to see the last modification time of the description information for a Youtube video as well as the time that the uploaded video was last modified on the uploader's computer or the time that the video was uploaded to Youtube, but queued to be released later. Either way, it shows more accurately when the author was working on these videos. One way of doing this is by using the youtube-dl program. When you download a Youtube video using this program, it will try to set the modification time on the downloaded file to the date given by the Last-Modified header in the stream URL that Youtube presents to the browser when it plays a video. Also, the mpeg container a "Creation Date" marker, which is set when the video is created on the Youtube server This is viewable using a number of tools ( when converting with ffmpeg to another format the Creation Date is dumped to the console ). By using this technique on these videos, we get this information: Video Creation Timestamps *2013-09-15 12:55:58 -0400 How to Pronounce 1-YCZKKZWPwjc.mp4 *2013-09-15 12:53:17 -0400 How to Pronounce 2-SIKajSoyIDI.mp4 *2013-09-15 12:50:53 -0400 How to Pronounce 3-ULUuPwz62EE.mp4 *2013-09-15 12:49:03 -0400 How to Pronounce 4-uZL0GL5ddj4.mp4 *2013-09-15 12:53:37 -0400 How to Pronounce 5-dcjaNyv1-gc.mp4 *2013-09-15 12:43:07 -0400 How to Pronounce 6-mTEexRUOU6U.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:34:17 -0400 How to Pronounce 7-PmWRlNdO5y4.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:42:10 -0400 How to Pronounce 8-7L-8x42e7ig.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:28:25 -0400 How to Pronounce 9-e9KFc9qS00Y.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:26:51 -0400 How to Pronounce 10-rZVPT1FtI0w.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:19:57 -0400 How to Pronounce 11-Olz8qB-jYV0.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:16:05 -0400 How to Pronounce 12-qor9dMGQga8.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:07:17 -0400 How to Pronounce 13-8HS0L0O_Rr4.mp4 *2013-09-08 18:17:47 -0400 How to Pronounce 14-iXi-A0M3gWc.mp4 *2013-09-06 16:02:52 -0400 How to Pronounce 15-YwAYVS-Usq0.mp4 *2013-09-06 15:55:10 -0400 How to Pronounce 16-YaWxg_z4lUM.mp4 *2013-09-06 15:50:09 -0400 How to Pronounce 17-jq5FrtcA7Rk.mp4 *2013-09-02 21:57:17 -0400 How to Pronounce 18-DBoAm03fQ6Q.mp4 *2013-09-02 21:43:21 -0400 How to Pronounce 19-yfZUXL_ERrw.mp4 *2013-09-02 21:36:50 -0400 How to Pronounce 20-OgLTv4n5ooo.mp4 *2013-09-02 11:24:33 -0400 How to Pronounce 21-tINpJZYS-x4.mp4 *2013-09-01 11:54:50 -0400 How to Pronounce 22-7TOoKrjc9YE.mp4 *2013-08-29 11:01:59 -0400 How to Pronounce 23-14llZXl-xuY.mp4 *2013-08-29 00:49:26 -0400 How to Pronounce 24-BjHBNnY0kbk.mp4 *2013-08-29 00:46:04 -0400 How to Pronounce 25-hfwM8NmKy_Q.mp4 *2013-08-26 20:23:23 -0400 How to Pronounce 26-GhTAgMIjGAQ.mp4 *2013-08-26 19:17:09 -0400 How to Pronounce 27-9OnGja_fucw.mp4 *2013-08-24 23:30:38 -0400 How to Pronounce 28-xRb9Y0uL8aQ.mp4 *2013-08-23 16:32:12 -0400 How to Pronounce 29-cuinu_cdoDo.mp4 *2013-08-22 11:41:39 -0400 How to Pronounce 30-yB73-92TZEQ.mp4 *2013-08-19 01:58:12 -0400 How to Pronounce 31-NXdkGgcyKYA.mp4 *2013-08-19 01:50:02 -0400 How to Pronounce 32-l6jcvJrGE1U.mp4 *2013-08-19 01:35:03 -0400 How to Pronounce 33-hGENrQgqNHU.mp4 *2013-08-19 01:28:16 -0400 How to Pronounce 34-YDnXnZBUL-g.mp4 *2013-08-19 13:39:19 -0400 How to Pronounce 35-YJGc1kM7-4g.mp4 *2013-08-19 12:41:37 -0400 How to Pronounce 36-qvjcPoiafP0.mp4 *2013-08-08 15:03:23 -0400 How to Pronounce 37-UtjgL9Hl4js.mp4 *2013-08-08 16:58:44 -0400 How to Pronounce 38-22xKXFgOQL4.mp4 *2013-08-08 16:09:37 -0400 How to Pronounce 39-to7cKTPISI0.mp4 *2013-08-08 14:35:09 -0400 How to Pronounce 40-ai-fuWtLroY.mp4 *2013-08-08 17:12:27 -0400 How to Pronounce 41-B2kSR7aU_04.mp4 *2013-08-08 17:07:29 -0400 How to Pronounce 42-TXXbArSgo0E.mp4 *2013-08-03 16:46:36 -0400 How to Pronounce 43-sPjN08T6rmQ.mp4 *2013-08-03 10:05:07 -0400 How to Pronounce 44--K2wm4avRVQ.mp4 *2013-08-03 16:54:55 -0400 How to Pronounce 45-xp8EVqcEcmc.mp4 *2013-08-03 16:37:08 -0400 How to Pronounce 46-dVVUXrkWUFM.mp4 *2013-08-03 16:21:23 -0400 How to Pronounce 47-AI8QMIeklPA.mp4 *2013-08-03 10:42:22 -0400 How to Pronounce 48-OilfE6TMHLQ.mp4 *2013-08-03 15:14:46 -0400 How to Pronounce 49-fI1NcK1olJo.mp4 *2013-08-03 14:44:36 -0400 How to Pronounce 50-7gYswyYr2ZI.mp4 *2013-08-03 10:15:30 -0400 How to Pronounce 51-vitlKciTT14.mp4 *2013-08-03 14:20:37 -0400 How to Pronounce 52-NiwoyyNcNEo.mp4 *2013-08-02 04:00:25 -0400 How to Pronounce 53-ujBRKbpRstM.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:25:03 -0400 How to Pronounce 54-KvaYPP99xvY.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:22:42 -0400 How to Pronounce 55-MSI_MVobYdU.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:20:43 -0400 How to Pronounce 56-pKGqnUmSJjk.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:18:37 -0400 How to Pronounce 57-cKUOkmDsXXI.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:16:16 -0400 How to Pronounce 58-vKlyXh5bCO8.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:14:12 -0400 How to Pronounce 59-8PDwbvAwCc0.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:12:29 -0400 How to Pronounce 60-CwQn7POkmxs.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:10:42 -0400 How to Pronounce 61-ynnIeFPfAU8.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:08:25 -0400 How to Pronounce 62-QAk0idWtob8.mp4 *2013-07-21 12:06:31 -0400 How to Pronounce 63-JIYwtDYrMUA.mp4 *2013-07-17 22:16:38 -0400 How to Pronounce 64-i-hlC9cPnXU.mp4 *2013-07-17 22:14:40 -0400 How to Pronounce 65-pDfwEZoFRR0.mp4 *2013-07-17 22:12:52 -0400 How to Pronounce 66-qmpbmsxKuYU.mp4 *2013-07-17 22:08:55 -0400 How to Pronounce 67-VYR0t3mHKJY.mp4 *2013-07-17 22:06:13 -0400 How to Pronounce 68-XjDKbti2cxc.mp4 *2013-07-13 20:22:33 -0400 How to Pronounce 69-4_2YEqv8NVI.mp4 *2013-07-13 20:19:42 -0400 How to Pronounce 70-p6E7kG-ufL8.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:11:23 -0400 How to Pronounce 71-SergzrDyD58.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:11:54 -0400 How to Pronounce 72-MoDnPVYHH0k.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:12:38 -0400 How to Pronounce 73-QKB3sgWjdWo.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:13:18 -0400 How to Pronounce 74-kn_1DnRqM8c.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:14:35 -0400 How to Pronounce 75-2g-d-8qpH9w.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:16:09 -0400 How to Pronounce 76-7DnPRjbY_oc.mp4 *2013-07-08 20:15:40 -0400 How to Pronounce 77-ouiDKPYV_zI.mp4 Analysis So the work on these videos seems to have been done during the following time slots. Time slots in bold show times that are during the normal 9 to 5 work day. The numbers in parenthesis show the order in which the days were timestamped. Sometimes it is in sequence other times they are a bit out of order. In most cases this was probably just his batch processing system taking longer for some videos than others. *Monday 2013-07-08 between 8pm and 8:20pm (71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 77, 76) *Saturday 2013-07-13 between 8:15pm and 8:30pm (70 and 69) *Wednesday 2013-07-17 between 10pm and 10:20pm (68-64) *Sunday 2013-07-21 between 12pm and 12:25pm (63 - 54) After this time the pattern changes. Videos are made during normal business like hours, in varying orders and in smaller batches. This is also the point in the Spectrogram after which the noise is removed from the image. *Friday 2013-08-02 at 4:00am (53) *Saturday 2013-08-03 between 10am and 10:42am (44, 51, 48) *Saturday 2013-08-03 between 2:15pm and 4:54pm (52, 50, 49, 47, 46, 43, 45) *'Thursday 2013-08-08 between 2:35pm and 5:12pm (40, 37, 39, 38, 42, 41)' *Monday 2013-08-19 between 1:28am and 1:58am (34, 33, 32, 31) *'Monday 2013-08-19 between 12:41pm and 1:39pm (36 and 35)' *'Thursday 2013-08-22 at 11:41am (30)' *'Friday 2013-08-23 at 4:32pm (29)' *Saturday 2013-08-24 at 11:30pm (28) *Monday 2013-08-26 between 7:17pm and 8:23pm (27 and 26) *Thursday 2013-08-29 between 12:46am and 12:49am (25 and 24) *'Thursday 2013-08-29 at 11:01am (23)' *Sunday 2013-09-01 at 11:54am (22) *Monday 2013-09-02 at 11:24am (21) (This is United States Labor day and a legal holiday) *Monday 2013-09-02 between 9:36pm and 9:57pm (20-18) (Labor day continued) *'Friday 2013-09-06 between 3:50pm and 4:02pm (17-15)' *Sunday 2013-09-08 between 6:07pm and 6:42pm (13, 12, 14, 11, 10, 9, 7, 8) *Sunday 2013-09-15 between 12:43pm and 12:55pm (6, 4, 3, 2, 5, 1) 77days-cal-vid-and-animgif-Sep.png|September Animated GIFs vs. Video uploads 77days-cal-animgif-only-Sep.png|September animated gifs 77days-cal-vid-Sep.png|September Video uploads 77days-cal-vid-Aug.png|August video uploads 77days-cal-vid-July.png|July Video uploads Pattern Change There is a theory that the reason for the change in the noise level in the spectrogram is that the creator of the videos saw how the videos where being analyzed and then changed their own encoding so that it would produce less noise. The timestamps above seem to agree with this theory because after day 54, the is a longer break than usual (11 days vs. 4 to 5 days) and that implies the extra time needed to reprogram the encoder. Also, a single video was produced and released (day 53) before moving on and creating more videos. This implies that the creator wanted to make sure that the new encoding algorithm fixed the issue in the analyzed image before continuing. The extremely early morning timestamp (4am) of the production for day 53 also implies that they were working long night hours to get it working properly. No other video has been produced so late into the night. Integrity This timestamp analysis information was originally released on July 27th, which was after the production of day 54. It may not have been widely seen though until August 23rd, which was after the production of day 29. Since it seems that the creator of the videos is watching this wiki and our analysis efforts its reasonable to assume that the timestamps after August 23rd can't completely be trusted as the creator may try to change them to thwart analysis. Conclusion We can now see that the times at which work was done on most these videos was likely after normal business hours. Implying that whoever is doing this is not doing it for a job. It also done in short bursts at times that are later in the evening or on a weekend afternoon. Perhaps the person has a family and little time to actually work on this. They are also fairly efficient in creating this videos. Going back through all the videos, it becomes clear that he produces many videos at a time, then has sheduled publishing release the videos at a set time each day to give the appearnace that he is producing these videos each day. However after day 54 it appears that the creator is more disorganized, producing days out of order and often just one or two in a batch. Category:Research